Seventeen faculty members and researchers from Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies were hosted at U.S. Pacific Command (USPACOM) Headquarters in Hawaii for an intensive orientation on Feb. 4-5. The visit aimed to advance collaboration and to offer a deeper understanding of USPACOM’s operations to Stanford scholars who study international security and Asia.

Admiral Harry B. Harris, Jr., Commander of USPACOM, together with his commanders and staff, welcomed the delegation. Harris’s meeting with Stanford faculty is the second in recent months. The USPACOM visit and earlier speech at Stanford Center at Peking University are part of a series of activities driven by the U.S.-Asia Security Initiative. Led by Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, the Initiative seeks to provide constructive interaction between academic and governmental experts on the many and diverse security challenges facing the Asia-Pacific region.

“Engaging deeply in conversations with those who are on the frontlines is incredibly valuable,” said trip participant Coit Blacker, FSI senior fellow and professor of international studies. “This is especially true for academics who focus much of their attention thinking about the prospects for international peace and security but not necessarily considering their direct application on a military-level.”

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Top: (Left) The Stanford delegation watches a demonstration of a 2-minute drill. / (Right) Karen Eggleston boards a UH-60 Blackhawk helpcopter enroute to the Lightning Academy with her colleagues. Bottom: The delegation takes a group photo on-site.

On the first day, FSI scholars spoke with military officers about the command’s strategies and challenges it faces, such as population aging and sovereignty disputes over the South China Sea. Discussions were followed with a tour of USS Michael Murphy, a guided missile destroyer which routinely conducts operations in the Western Pacific including the South China Sea.

Karen Eggleston, FSI senior fellow and director of the Asia Health Policy Program, was one of the discussants on the USPACOM trip. Her research focuses on health policy in Asia, specifically the effects of demographic change and urbanization.

“As a health economist, the visit yielded for me a behind-the-scenes sense of how members of the military respond to pandemics and humanitarian situations, and of the ongoing dialogue with their counterparts in Asian nations,” Eggleston said. “I think that kind of military-to-military engagement provides an area rich with questions and best practices that could in some ways be shared as a model among other nations.”

Other activities on the first day included a briefing by the U.S. Pacific Fleet command, informal presentations and dialogue between the Stanford participants and the USPACOM staff, and working with senior leaders of the U.S. Pacific Air Forces command.

On the second day, the group visited the U.S. Army’s installation at Schofield Barracks. There, they observed a command post simulation and field exercise including units of the 25^th Infantry Division. Graduates from the U.S. Army’s jungle survival training school also shared their impressions of applying lessons in the field. Researchers from the Asia-Pacific Center for Strategic Studies (APCSS) joined the Stanford delegation later in the day. Both sides discussed research outcomes and avenues for future exchanges. The day concluded with an extensive tour of USS Mississippi, a Virginia-class attack submarine. FSI has long engaged military officers through a senior military fellows program. Started in 2009 by the Center for International Security and Cooperation, the program remains active today with five fellows conducting research at Stanford.

Lt. Col. Jose Sumangil, a 2015-16 U.S. Air Force Senior Military Fellow, participated in the Stanford delegation at USPACOM.

“The trip was an excellent opportunity to showcase how the U.S. ‘rebalance to Asia’ strategy is implemented on a day-to-day basis – for example, providing a look into the decision-making process that could occur should a situation arise in the South China Sea,” Sumangil said. “It’s incredibly important to build this kind of understanding among experts studying Asia, and I think we helped do that here.”

USPACOM is one of the largest U.S. military commands with four major service components (U.S. Pacific Fleet, U.S. Pacific Air Forces, U.S. Army Pacific, U.S. Marine Forces); it is tasked with protecting U.S. people and interests, and enhancing stability in the Asia-Pacific Region.

An anti-poverty aid program that’s been implemented in the Philippines for nearly a decade is gaining attention for the progress it has made in not only helping the poor, but also for its role in decreasing political violence and insurgency.

Joe Felter, senior research scholar at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) and research fellow at the Hoover Institution, presented the results of his joint research on the program before senior political figures at a conference in the Philippine capital of Manila in January.

CISAC senior research scholar Joe Felter (left) joins Philippine President Benigno Aquino (right) and the Secretary of the Department of Social Welfare and Development Corazon “Dinky” Soliman (center) onstage at a conference on sustaining the gains of the conditional cash transfer program held in Manila in January, 2016.

“We worked for several years on this study and it was a privilege to provide these findings and results to senior officials in the Philippine government who are in a position to act on them,” said Felter. “It’s really gratifying to know that academic research can contribute to actual improvements in the conditions, livelihood and safety of those in need.”

The focus of the conference was on the conditional cash-transfer (CCT) anti-poverty aid program called Pantawid Pamilya. Administered by Soliman’s Department of Social Welfare and Development, the Philippines began deploying the program in 2007. It is similar to other CCT programs used in Brazil, Columbia, India, Indonesia and Mexico where households must meet certain income thresholds and basic health and education requirements to qualify for its benefits. CCT programs distribute cash payments to targeted poor households and are proving to be an increasingly popular tool for reducing poverty and improving livelihoods in poverty-affected areas.

The effect of aid on conflict

Felter and his colleagues conducted an analysis of the impact of aid on civil conflict that takes advantage of a randomized control trial (RCT) initiated in the Philippines by the World Bank in 2009 as part of an impact evaluation of the Pantawid Pamilya CCT program. Impact evaluations of CCT programs to date limit their findings to those areas the program was intended to address such as health, education, and employment. Published in the January 2016 Journal of Development Economics, the study estimates the effect of conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs on two other critical outcomes- civil conflict and insurgent influence.

CISAC senior research scholar Joe Felter shakes hands with Philippine President Benigno Aquino onstage at a conference in the Philippine capital of Manila.

“Considering the types of conflicts taking place around the globe, it is both timely and important to study how aid can be delivered in a manner that reduces poverty without exacerbating conflict,” said Felter. “Development aid can sometimes have the unintended effect of increasing conflict in civil wars when insurgents believe the successful implementation of government-sponsored development projects will boost support for the government and undermine their position.” 

Felter himself is no stranger to international conflict. He retired from the U.S. Army as a colonel in 2012 following a career as a Special Forces and foreign area officer that took him on missions to Central America, Southeast Asia, Afghanistan, and Iraq.  Now in academia, he uses data and rigorous quantitative methods to help those in the field better understand and more effectively and efficiently approach the challenges of stabilizing conflict areas through development aid and economic assistance. 

Despite the growing popularity of CCTs, and assessments of their effectiveness at reducing poverty and improving livelihood, there is limited evidence on how the payment programs affect the civil conflict often present in these poverty stricken areas. Felter, along with his coauthors Benjamin Crost of the University of Illinois, and Patrick Johnston of RAND Corporation, took advantage of the World Bank’s randomized experiment to identify the effect CCT programs had on conflict-related incidents and the influence of insurgent groups, even though the experiment was not originally designed to study the effect of Pantawid Pamilya on these outcomes. Their research compared these aspects of the CCT program’s impact in treatment villages to control villages in the Philippines from 2009-2011.

The Philippines is home to some of the world’s most protracted civil conflicts, including a separatist insurgency in Mindanao island with roots dating back to Spanish colonial times, and a decades long communist insurgency affecting nearly all of the country’s provinces across this archipelago.

“Studying the impact of conditional cash transfers on political violence and insurgent influence in the Philippines is especially instructive and generalizable because you have multiple, long-running insurgencies, each with distinct characteristics, and with an array of government sponsored aid programs implemented in these areas over time,” said Felter.

Two key findings resulted from the team’s analysis. First, the CCT program caused a substantial reduction in the number of conflict-related incidents in the villages where it was administered. Second, the program was effective at reducing insurgent influence in the treated villages. Significantly, their findings provide evidence that the effects of CCTs can differ from other types of aid interventions based on the type of aid provided and how it is implemented.

“That Pantawid Pamilya helped reduce the presence of rebel groups in the targeted villages is especially consequential.” Felter said. “A program that reduces violence by weakening insurgent influence is likely to have more beneficial long-term effects since insurgent influence can still undermine the rule of law and oppress citizens even without violence.”

Not all aid programs created equal

An effective aid program such as this can result in more than an economic boost for a village or community and a reduction in violence. It can also provide a psychological victory that enables the government to gain increased support from the local population – effectively “winning hearts and minds” – thus potentially enabling the government to gain better security through increased cooperation and information sharing about insurgents from the population. This is a win-win result, especially in regions where insurgents often gain support by exposing weaknesses of the government, not just through fear and coercion. Insurgents win when they are able to achieve legitimacy in the eyes of a local population whose own government is unable to provide for their basic needs.

However, a “winning hearts and minds” strategy for disbursing government aid can sometimes backfire depending on how these programs are carried out. For example, KALAHI-CIDSS, a large-scale community-driven development (CDD) infrastructure program took place in similar regions in the Philippines during the same time period as the Pantawid Pamilya experiment period. This aid program was also implemented by the DSWD, but in some cases led to different and unintended results. The CDD program was designed to empower the poorest Filipino municipalities through enhanced participation in community projects and training, but the way in which the projects were determined and the mechanisms they were delivered created incentives and opportunities for insurgents to attack the projects, resulting in increased local conflict in some cases where the program was implemented. CDD programs involve a series of public meetings and result in the implementation of widely publicized and often highly visible infrastructure projects. As a result, insurgents often attack these government “hearts and minds” initiatives that, if successful, threaten to shift popular support away from their rebel groups and towards the government.

In contrast to CDD programs, CCT programs disburse aid directly to its beneficiaries’ bank accounts, making it difficult for insurgents to anticipate when and where the transfers are occurring and inhibiting their capacity to disrupt and dismantle the program. The findings in Felter’s study provide preliminary evidence that the type of aid and mechanism in which it is delivered can be a major factor in determining its impact on civil conflict.

“The stakes are high in human and economic terms when it comes to stabilizing conflict areas and preventing a return of the deadly violence associated with civil wars and insurgency,” said Felter.

The results of this study provide rare empirical evidence that some forms of aid, and how it is implemented can reduce the intensity of civil conflict and the influence of the groups responsible for it. This evidence can help governments determine what type of aid to invest in to achieve their desired results.

“Distributing aid effectively and achieving maximum benefits from these investments is definitely a challenge and an area where more research is needed to better appreciate the many nuances and complexities of these efforts,” said Felter.

During the two-day conference in Manila, President Aquino noted how his administration had increased the CCT budget to cover close to 4.4 million poor households, up from 786,000 five years ago.

You can read Felter’s full paper in the January issue of the Journal of Development Economics.

North Korea today threatened military action against South Korea if it did not end its propaganda broadcasts along the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) within 48 hours. The broadcasts against the North are being systematically blared by loudspeakers over the border.   

South Korea resumed the broadcasts earlier this week after an 11-year hiatus, in retaliation for North Korea’s planting landmines just outside a South Korean DMZ guard post that crippled two South Korean soldiers on Aug. 4.

David Straub, associate director of the Korea Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and a former Korean affairs director at the U.S. Department of State, offers insights on the situation. Straub also spoke on PRI's "The World" radioshow on Aug. 20, the audioclip and summary can be accessed by clicking here.

What’s behind the current tensions on the Korean Peninsula?

Fundamentally, the current situation is just another symptom of the underlying problem, which is the division of Korea into two competing states, with one of them—North Korea—having a Stalinist totalitarian system and a Maoist-style cult of personality. Since North Korea can’t compete with the South economically and diplomatically, it uses the threat of force or the actual use of it to try to intimidate South Korea. The North Koreans know that South Korea tends to “blink first” and step back because it is democratic and its leaders are concerned about civilian casualties.

The current situation is also related to the leadership transition in North Korea, with leader Kim Jong Un succeeding his father Kim Jong Il three years ago. Kim Jong Un still feels insecure, which is clearly evidenced by his execution of his powerful uncle Jang Seong-taek in 2013 and many other leaders there as well. To solidify support for his rule, he also manufactures a South Korean threat to rally his people behind him.

What does North Korea want?

North Korea’s immediate demand is that South Korea stop its propaganda broadcasts across the DMZ. The South Korean broadcasts criticize the North Korean system and its leaders, which is something that the North, with its cult of personality, can’t accept. But the South resumed the broadcasts only because the North Koreans recently snuck into the South Korean side of the DMZ and viciously planted landmines just outside a South Korean guard post. These were clearly intended to maim South Korean soldiers. They did just that, blowing the legs off two young men.

The North Korean regime’s long-term aim is not just to survive but also to get the upper hand on South Korea, and eventually try again to reunify the peninsula on its own terms. That explains why North Korea behaves as it does, rather than reform its system and reconcile with the South.

The North also demands an end to all U.S. and South Korean military exercises on the peninsula—even though the North has a much larger military than the South and U.S. forces there combined and is developing nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. Ultimately, the North wants to end the U.S.-South Korean alliance and see U.S. forces withdrawn from the peninsula, in the belief that it will open the way to eventual victory over the South.

Why did the South resume the broadcasts? Was it a good idea?

South Korea resumed the loudspeaker broadcasts in retaliation for the maiming of two of its soldiers on August 4th. Rather than retaliate by attacking militarily, the South resumed the loudspeaker broadcasts because the South Korean military knows that North Korean leaders hate them.

The South Korean military believes that North Korean leaders hate the broadcasts because they are effective in educating young North Korean soldiers and civilians in earshot about the nature of the regime and its leaders. The South Korean military seems to assume that the broadcasts are effective in that regard because they anger the North Korean leaders so much. But I think the reason the broadcasts anger the North Korean leaders is due to the cult of personality. The North Korean system can’t accept the idea of its leaders being criticized.

So I don’t think it was necessarily a wise step on the part of the South Korean military to resume the broadcasts. On the other hand, politically, by crippling two South Korean soldiers, the North Koreans had left South Korea with no option but to respond in some way. After the North Koreans killed fifty South Koreans in two separate sneak attacks five years ago, the South Korean government warned that it was not going to sit back the next time. The resumption of the broadcasts has further raised tensions but, frankly, given the danger of war on the peninsula, the South doesn’t have a lot of good ways to respond to North Korean provocations.

How serious is the situation?

North Korea has now threatened military action in 48 hours if South Korea doesn’t end the propaganda broadcasts. The North often makes threats. Usually, it doesn’t carry them out, but sometimes it does.

The United States and South Korea are conducting an annual military exercise together in the South until the end of August—something else that the North Koreans are demanding an end to. Most experts feel that the North is unlikely to launch a major provocation while the American presence is bolstered and the U.S. and South Korean militaries are paying full attention. The North Korean leaders know they are weaker than our side, so they usually avoid frontal assaults and instead engage in sneak attacks, at times and places and in ways of their own choosing.

There is more uncertainty in recent years because of the aggressive and threatening behavior thus far of Kim Jong Un, who is young and inexperienced. He seems anxious about his position in the North and prepared to take risks to bolster it, including rallying the people behind him by raising tensions with the South. We also don’t know if the North feels freer to engage in major provocations because it has developed at least a handful of nuclear devices since its first nuclear test in 2006.

So I myself wouldn’t be afraid to visit Seoul now but the situation bears even closer watching than usual.

CISAC's Honors Program in International Studies recently awarded three prizes to some of its students, instead of the traditional two. “At the end of the year we award prizes to three of the thesis writers. It’s always a hard decision to make because they are all really good,” said FSI Senior Fellow and Honors Co-director Martha Crenshaw.

Taylor Grossman, Patrick Cirenza, and Teo Lamiot were awarded the Firestone Medal for Excellence in Undergraduate Research, the William J. Perry Prize, and the John Holland Slusser World Peace Prize, respectively. They presented their work in front of faculty, advisors, and friends at a packed seminar in early June.

The Perry Prize, named after former Defense Secretary and current FSI Senior Fellow William Perry, is awarded to a student for excellence in policy-relevant research in international security studies. Cirenza’s thesis, “An Evaluation of the Analogy between Nuclear and Cyber Deterrence,” examined whether cyber weapons can be accurately understood by comparing them to nuclear weapons.

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“My thesis topic definitely evolved over time,” Cirenza said. “I really did not know that much about cyber weapons. I initially wanted to look at non-state actors in cyber space and I asked Professor Scott Sagan about that and he asked what I knew about cyber and the reality was I really did not know anything. But I still really wanted to study it and at the time I was in Condoleezza Rice’s seminar and she suggested examining the analogy between nuclear and cyber weapons, which was being used a lot at the time. I went through several different topics and ultimately landed on deterrence.”

Cirenza was advised by FSI Senior Fellow Coit Blacker, who co-directs the honors program with Crenshaw, and by consulting professor Phil Taubman. Next fall he will attend Cambridge for a one year M.Phil program in international relations. After that he hopes to join the Marine Corps infantry.

“I never wanted a desk job in my twenties and I think it’s the best way to serve my country at this time,” he said.

The newly created Slusser Prize goes to the thesis that best contributes to the development of “permanent world peace.” Lamiot’s thesis, “When Blue Helmets Do Battle: Civilian Protection in the Democratic Republic of the Congo” examined whether the use of force against rebel groups in the DRC by UN peacekeepers had any effect on atrocities committed against civilians. He was advised by FSI Senior Fellow Stephen Stedman, who formerly served as Assistant Secretary-General and Special Advisor to the Secretary-General of the United Nations.

Lamiot started formulating his thesis topic when he was working in the U.S. embassy in the DRC. “I worked in the unit that is tasked with monitoring the conflict in the eastern part of the country. Part of my work was investigating a massacre that had taken place in that region about a month before I arrived in country. The massacre was of interest to the U.S. government because the Congolese and U.N. peacekeeping forces stationed nearby did not respond to the massacre despite knowing that it was going on,” he recounted.

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“This sparked my interest and, at first, I wanted to answer the question why do peacekeepers use force in some cases but not in others, but I ultimately decided on answering what happens when they do use force. I’m hoping that my argument that in some cases using force has positive effects and decreases rebel violence against civilians informs these decision-makers on the ground when they are choosing what to do.”

After graduation Lamiot will be on a Center for Democracy, Development, and Rule of Law fellowship in Uganda doing development work. “I’ll likely be working on democratic and political development. I’m trying to learn something about how outside actors can try to bring about these development outcomes in foreign countries.”

The Firestone Medal is a Stanford-wide prize awarded to the top ten percent of all honors theses in social science, science, and engineering. Grossman, who will also graduate with a B.A. Political Science, wrote hers on homeland security and the evolution of terrorism advisory systems. She was advised by CISAC Co-Director Amy Zegart.

“I really wanted to look at effectiveness of communication and intelligence sharing, but in a way that I could actually see government information. That led me to public warning systems for terrorism where there is a lot of public information available. Not a lot has been written on how effective they are, how they operate, or how they have evolved,” Grossman said.

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After graduation she plans on joining the Hoover Institution as a research assistant.

“I feel like I majored in CISAC. Ever since I took the class ‘The Face of Battle’ with Professor Scott Sagan and Colonel Joe Felter, I’ve been hooked on international security and the issues CISAC focuses on. I think the honors program has been the defining part of my undergraduate career. It was really rewarding and challenging and I’m glad I did it.”

Grossman and Cirenza were also elected to the Phi Beta Kappa Society in May 2015, as was Geo Saba, a political science major. Phi Beta Kappa is a nationwide society honoring students for the excellence and breadth of their undergraduate scholarly accomplishments.

Additionally, the Stanford Alumni Association (SAA) selected Cirenza, Grossman, and Akshai Baskaran, who majored in chemical engineering, to receive an Award of Excellence. 

Congratulations to all graduates of the Class of 2015: Akshai Baskaran, Patrick Cirenza, Kelsey Dayton, Taylor Grossman, Sean Hiroshima, Annie Kapnick, Sarah Kunis, Teo Lamiot, Austin Lewis, Sam Rebo, Geo Saba, Eliza Thompson, and Adrienne von Schulthess.